Kazuo and the Water Demon
by Kiki Cabou
Summary: Post-Ep for Aku's Fairy Tales. Aku leaves the kids all alone in the convention center, and the rain comes pouring down outside. Enter the Samurai.


DISCLAIMER: Don't own nuthin'. Go away, lawyers!  
  
AUTHOR: Kiki Cabou  
  
SUMMARY: Post-Ep for Aku's Fairy Tales. Aku leaves the kids all alone in the big hall, and it storms outside. Jack arrives. To pass the time, he tells them the story of . . .  
  
*** KAZUO AND THE WATER DEMON. ***  
  
Samurai Jack was annoyed, disquieted, and wet. He was wandering through the streets of a metallic, black city (one of many controlled by Aku). Towers reached up their spidery points to the sky, wavering in the wind. It was dark, and the rain was coming down in buckets. Jack's gi was plastered to him. The undulating red lights everywhere made odd colors dance on his pale skin and black hair as he looked around. He realized why he was uneasy.  
  
He hadn't heard a child laugh in many hours.  
  
His geta sandals *clokked* on the pavement as he walked. He turned a corner at a quick pace and slammed into a woman. They both fell over. Jack got up first and gave the woman a hand.  
  
"Thank you," she said. She was maybe thirty, with a skinny face and bright blue eyes. She also wore a huge cloak that covered her from head to ankle. "Sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going."  
  
"Where *are* you going, if I may ask?" Jack replied, straightening his obi.  
  
"The bus stop. I'm trying to catch a tram to the convention center, to find my daughter. All the children were called there. We weren't told why. It's just been so long! And now with the rain . . ."  
  
The sky boomed and flashed above their heads and they both jumped. The rain began to come down even harder. They ducked under a nearby store canopy.  
  
"I can understand your worry," Jack said. "Please. Which way will lead me to this 'con-ven-tion' center?"  
  
The woman looked surprised, and pointed toward the center of the city. "Keep the giant buildings on your left and the path will curve. You can't miss it. It's such a long walk, though ---"  
  
"Thank you," Jack said, and bowed quickly. He ran off through the downpour.  
  
"Her name's Emily, sir!" came the woman's shout behind him. "She's only four years old!"  
  
It took Jack fifteen soggy minutes to reach the convention center. He passed by the eerie shapes of dilapidated food carts, stepped on popcorn bags with Aku faces on them, and found a metal door that was partly open. His ears were hit by the sound of chaos: laughter, wrestling, the gleeful screaming of nursery rhymes, and boisterous pat-a-cake games. He stepped in quietly, closed the door behind him, and stood at the back of the huge, metal cavern. A enormous dais sat at the center of the room, and the noise engulfed him. He blinked, rather bewildered.  
  
He'd never seen so many kids in one place before.  
  
"*gasp* SAMURAI JACK!!!" someone shouted. The games stopped. Every eye was on him. It was silent.  
  
Jack wasn't sure what to do. All of these small people were staring at him, expectantly. Some adoringly. He gulped.  
  
"Um, hello," he said, uncertain.  
  
No one replied. They just stared. Until finally ---  
  
"Hello!" came a friendly chirp from his right.  
  
He looked across the sea of heads and spotted a small girl with big blue eyes and a blond ponytail waving at him. He waved back, and lots of other little girls started giggling.  
  
"What are you all doing here?" he asked the crowd at large.  
  
"Aku made us come here and listen to stupid stories!" said one kid, with a bulbous nose and pointy black hair that stuck out in all directions. He crossed his arms and "humphed."  
  
His friend, a kid with a ski-jump nose and black hair in a ponytail, straightened out his white bathrobe and added, "But it's okay, 'cuz Aku took off and we all made one up about you!"  
  
Jack was amused. "About me?" The kids began to babble. The room got loud again.  
  
"Yeah!" squeaked a little girl. "And then it started to rain really hard, and we played pat-a-cake!" She giggled and fell over into a pile of her friends.  
  
The noise level was rising.  
  
"Just the girls!" said the ski-jump bathrobe kid. "Boys don't play pat-a- cake! That's a stupid game!"  
  
"You're just mad 'cuz you lost!" said another little girl.  
  
Jack was getting a headache.  
  
"Nuh uh, you cheated!" a small boy retorted.  
  
"Boys are dumb!"  
  
"Girls are yucky!"  
  
"ENOUGH!" Jack shouted. He put his hands on his hips like a stern father and the children went silent.  
  
The only sound was the *squeaky squeaky* of a boy picking his nose. Jack glared at him. He stopped.  
  
But, irritated and wet as he was, something tugged at Jack's heart. He let his hands fall to his sides again, and took in the bunch of children. Aliens mingled with humans, middle-class mingled with poor, boys with girls. And Aku, in his heartlessness, had left all of them here, alone. They were away from their parents, in the middle of a rain storm, with no one to look after them. They blinked at him with their big eyes. They were all so . . . cute.  
  
"Well at least you are respectful of your elders," he said. "But please, tell me. Aku did nothing but tell you silly stories? He did not hurt any of you?"  
  
The kids chorused "no" and Jack was relieved.  
  
"What would you do if he did?" came a question from the crowd.  
  
"I would kill him immediately," Jack answered. "But no more of that. It is raining very hard, so I don't think it would be wise for you to return home tonight. You should all sleep here. I will stay here with you until morning."  
  
"Yay! Thamurai Jack and a thleepover, too!" yelled a little girl.  
  
Jack found closets full of emergency blankets, and within minutes, small people were toddling everywhere with them around their shoulders. Jack was sitting on the dais, wrapped in a big one, while he waited for his gi to dry on a nearby hot water pipe.  
  
A bit later, the crowd was an explosive mixture of crankiness and boredom. The ground wasn't comfortable, so no one could nod off right away. The pipe wasn't that hot, so Jack had gotten impatient, and put on a damp gi. No one was happy.  
  
"Jack?" came a little girl's voice. "Will you tell us a story?"  
  
"Yeah yeah yeah!" said the crowd, and they started to chant, "Sto-RY! Sto- RY! Sto-RY!"  
  
Jack was nervous. He didn't know any stories off-hand. Well, necessity was the mother of invention, right? He would simply have to make one up.  
  
"All right," he said, from his seat on the dais. There was a cheer. "Get comfortable."  
  
He crossed his legs Indian-style and wrapped his blanket tighter around his shoulders. The kids did the same and packed themselves together, both for warmth and for being where they could hear Jack. Lots of little ones, finding no space in front of the samurai, just scrambled up on the dias and snuggled up to him. One little girl with bright blue eyes plopped herself right into his lap. Jack smiled and put an arm around her. Everyone was ready.  
  
"This is the story," Jack told them, "Of Kazuo . . ." He looked at the rain coming down outside. "And the water demon."  
  
"Once, long ago, in a distant land, there was a fishing village. And in this village lived a man named Takehiro. Takehiro made nets and hooks, and fixed things. He taught his son, Kazuo, how to do all of this. And he gave Kazuo something very beautiful: a golden fish hook, which Kazuo wore around his neck."  
  
"How old was Kazuo?" a short kid shouted.  
  
"Nine," Jack said. "About as tall as you." That seemed to satisfy the kid, so he went on. "The villagers were happy. There was always enough to eat, trade was prosperous, and hardly anybody feuded with each other.  
  
Until one day.  
  
An evil water demon appeared in the ocean right near the village. He was huge and blue, with whiskers of sea foam, and ugly fins on his head. He seemed to rise up from the sea itself!"  
  
Jack flexed both hands, put his thumbs on his head to make horns, and opened his almond-shaped eyes wide. He gnashed his teeth. Some kids gasped. Three little girls screamed. The little one in Jack's lap buried her face in his gi. Jack put his hands down.  
  
"He terrorized the village. He was a greedy, greedy water demon. And he liked things that glittered. He demanded that all the women in the village give him pretty things: shiny yellow beads and rubies. The men gathered shiny orange stones from the seaside, and pearls, too, and all of it went into the demon's belly. But he was mean. He ate and ate, but still kept the fish away from the shores. Everyone grew skinny and sad.  
  
Finally, Takehiro had had enough. He made a net of fire, which would make the demon dry up and blow away like smoke. Kazuo followed his father to the beach. The water demon appeared, and Takehiro said:  
  
This is my village, and my home! And you shall harm my people no more! Be gone!  
  
And he threw the burning net at the water demon! But alas, he missed. The net hit the water and the fire went out. And the evil water demon opened up his mouth . . . and swallowed Takehiro whole."  
  
There was a group gasp.  
  
"Kazuo was angry. His papa was in the belly of a beast! But he felt his neck and took out his golden fish hook. He had an idea. He asked every woman in the village to give him a strand of their hair. And with the hair, he wove a long rope. At the end of the rope, he tied the golden hook. Then he stood on the shore and cast his line.  
  
The water demon saw the shiny gold hook and couldn't resist. He swallowed it, and was caught. By a mere child, no less! Kazuo felt a jerk and the entire village helped him haul out the water demon. They threw it on the shore. The demon gnashed his teeth and yelled curses at the boy, but he was powerless.  
  
His love of things that glittered had been his undoing. Kazuo called for his father. And his father said . . ." Jack put a hand over his mouth to muffle himself. "Stand back! I am coming out the front!"  
  
"He burst out through the water demon's mouth, and Kazuo was overjoyed. He took back his golden hook. And then, the God of the Sea appeared. He loomed over the town like a tsunami. And he punished the water demon by turning him into a big fat fish, with whiskers.  
  
Since the demon had so many orange stones, red rubies, yellow beads, and white pearls in his belly, those are the colors the God of the Sea made his scales. He turned the demon into a beautiful carp. The men flung the carp back into the water, and Kazuo's village was freed. It grew prosperous once more.  
  
And that is why carp look the way they do, and why they glitter."  
  
The room was silent when Jack finished. At first, he had a bad feeling about it, like perhaps none of these kids knew what a carp was. Or perhaps he'd bored them all half to death --- he wasn't sure. He looked around. Every eye was on him. Every face had a small smile. The little girl in his lap grinned.  
  
"Dat was a good story, mister Jack," she said. "I liked da fishie."  
  
Everyone fell asleep soon after. And the next morning, the sun came out. It streamed in through the clear glass ceiling of the hall and right into Jack's eyelids. He snapped awake, ashamed of himself for falling asleep when he'd promised he'd keep watch over the children. They looked all right, though. They were sprawled all over each other on the floor, most of them snoring.  
  
Jack realized he was very warm, and lying on his side. He braved a look and almost laughed. He was at the bottom of a "dogpile" of small children, who'd somehow managed to clamber on top of him and sleep that way. The tiny girl who'd sat in his lap the night before was now cuddled against his chest. He smiled.  
  
The children woke a bit later. Jack heaved the heavy door open and herded them out into the arms of their very worried parents. But the little girl from his lap clung to his leg. He picked her up.  
  
"What is your name, child?" he asked.  
  
"Emily."  
  
The name rang a bell. Jack scoured the crowd until he saw a figure waving frantically at him. He narrowed his eyes, then waved back in recognition. It was the woman from the night before, in her cloak.  
  
"Emily!" she yelled, running towards them.  
  
"Mommy!" Emily called back.  
  
Jack made a smooth hand-off. The woman thanked him with her eyes and walked away. Emily waved at him over her mother's shoulder. He waved back. The last child had gone home safely. His duty done, Jack turned . . . and went on his way.  
  
***  
  
THE END!  
  
Note: the Japanese folktale that Jack makes up is one that *I* made up. If it's an actual Japanese folktale, I am using it without permission, and I apologize. I know almost nothing about Japan, except that that's where Jack is from. -[: )  
  
Peace,  
  
Kiki 


End file.
